If you want to get people thinking less, just throw the word sex into a room. To further subvert their rationality (and their trust in science), add the word kids. Or danger, promiscuity, pleasure, and “sexual rights.”

Dr. Marty Klein

For many people, the combination of these words creates a nightmare vision that the Religious Right has conveniently located, described, and promised to eliminate.

That’s what their War On Sex is about: generating fear, and then promising to reduce the danger by undermining secular democracy. All by demonizing sex, and proposing ways to control it.

By focusing on the word sex, the Religious Right has been extraordinarily successful at excluding science from public policy discussions about education, medicine, the media, criminal justice, and civil rights. They have also successfully re-conceptualized private sexual expression into public behavior, which is therefore subject to public control.” Their obsessive focus on sexual danger has undermined everyone’s sexual rights, from swing clubs to South Park, from sex toy stores to internet porn, from sex education to birth control.

Co-Sponsored by The Skeptical Society of St. Louis and The St Louis Rationalists. Hosted by Washington University, Brown School of Social Work

Dr. Marty Klein is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Sex Therapist. For three decades he has written and lectured about the intersection of sex, politics, and the media. He is the award-winning author of seven books about sex, including America’s War On Sex: The Attack on Law, Lust, & Liberty, which details how the Religious Right uses the issue of sexual regulation to undermine secular democracy.

Marty serves on the editorial board of The Humanist, is a Fellow of the Secular Policy Institute, and he has keynoted conferences including TAM, American Atheists, and the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex. He recently gave two Congressional briefings on evidence-based sex education.

Marty was the first writer to challenge the then-new concept of “sex addiction,” and is still its best-known critic (see Wikipedia!). He continually challenges the sex-negative quackery of American psychotherapy, with its gender stereotypes, iatrogenic beliefs about childhood sexuality, and prejudices about monogamy and pornography.

About his current book, Sexual Intelligence, Psychology Today simply says: “If you want to improve your sex life, read this book.” Audiences around the world say that goes for his talks, too–which are thought-provoking, down-to-earth, and entertaining.

“I’m aware of how backwards and fearful the U.S. is when it comes to sex, but it’s nice to see it all spelled out, organized, and backed with facts. Some of the facts are appalling! It’s incredible how much people want to control other people’s personal lives, and the lack of empathy. So many people are not just ignorant, but stupid! The author brings up some interesting points, such as our sex ed for kids approach is in order to make adults feel more comfortable, and does a great disservice to our children. The way our society is set up now will keep therapists in business for decades. This book is an important read for a sex-positive activist. I wish we could change our methods to match countries that have a successful model, but there are too many rich religious groups invested in profiting from the current set up that is preventing us from self-actualizing and being happy and healthy.”

Be sure and meet him when he’s in town!

Comments

Kendra Holliday2015-10-20 02:58:13

Feedback from a SEX+STL member on Marty’s book: “America’s War on Sex was scary, scarier than any horror story I could come up with. Until I read it, I thought society was liberalizing. To the contrary, it seems the big picture suggests that the anti-sex forces have more political control and they’re more intransigent about their crackdowns than ever. One part describes cities refusing hotels liquor licenses for hosting swingers parties. The crookedness he describes in charging or zoning sex oriented businesses brings one word to my mind: bullies. Conservatives see government as a bully instrument, and I could tell that’s what they believe by the way the conservative approve government harassment. They want bully instrument (government) in the right hands: theirs.”

It is good to see somebody speaking about the subject joys of sex. I live in Germany and sex and it’s fun are embraced. The church has lost a lot of say with there big lies.It makes my blood boil to see what damage has been done to women’s rights and enjoyment or sex. Keep up your fantastic work Kendra.